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Farming
Farming is the killing of monsters for the purpose of gathering items, experience, gold, Faction, or promotion points and is considered to be one of the quickest and easiest ways to amass wealth. Often you will find parties (especially in the harder areas of the game) searching for people to go farming with them. Farming groups utilize strategies and techniques optimized for farming effectiveness. These strategies revolve around two seemingly contradicting principles: *Reducing the number of party members: Smaller party size equals an increased chance for each member to get quality items. It similarly means fewer people to split the gold with. (Note this has been changed signifigantly since the April 19th Update. See below.) *Increasing the number of party members: Increased DPS, expedites the deaths of enemies killed within a given time frame. As such, dedicated farming groups experiment with builds in high-experience zones. Repeatedly dying or retreating is unfavorable for farming. Seek an effective party structure that clears out an area quickly and has less than a full party size. As of the April 19th, 2007 update, with the introduction of the hard mode, Money making from farming was decreased in parties with less than the maximum party size, as loot is now scaled according to the amount of players in a party. When farming solo or having party members, you get less items than you normally would, and that amount is now comparable to that of full group farming. Shortly after the release of the hard mode, loot scaling has been slightly adjusted by causing tomes, scrolls, dye, rare materials, Domain of Anguish gemstones, gold level rarity items, unique items, and Special Event items to be excluded from the new system. Recommended Locations Farming is the quickest and easiest way to get money. Common farming targets in Tyria (Prophecies) include Mountain Trolls in a cave to the north of Droknar's Forge, Mahgo Hydras in the Ring of Fire Islands, Undead outside of Bergen Hot Springs in hard mode and Minotaurs in Elona Reach. Pre-searing is a popular place to farm for dye, as they are reported to drop more frequently there. The most popular Pre-Searing farming location is currently The Catacombs. Another popular place to farm in Tyria is Sorrow's Furnace (SF) because of its great number of greens. A good location in hard mode is just outside Ascalon City in Old Ascalon. There are Hulking Stone Elementals and/or Gargoyles there that are pretty easy and they have a pretty good drop rate. In Cantha (Factions), Vermin, Shiro'ken, Wardens, and Kirin are popular farming targets. Also in Seijun Woods and Kinya Province you can find a substantial number of creatures with a very high probability of dropping items, and since these Mantid, Kappa and Naga pose little threat, you may perform a solo hunt. Drops here are small in value, but abundant. In Elona (Nightfall), Remains of Sahlahja can be farmed by using very specific builds. The Hidden City of Ahdashim is also very popular among the Spirit Bond monks, farming Djinns and Rain Beetles. The Shattered Ravines can be easily farmed with Junundu. In Hard Mode it is possible to farm Insects and Plants in the Plains of Jarin outside the Sunspear Great Hall. Outside Yohlon Haven, Tusked Howlers and Tusked Hunters can be farmed. Another Area in Elona to farm is in the Sulfurous Wastes. Faction Farming Sunspear and Lightbringer farming *Sunspear Promotion Points are easily farmed with heroes and henchmen while progressing through the campaign. **Restarting A Land of Heroes a few times before completing the quest is an effective farming method but will only obtain a maximum rank of Sunspear Commander. *Lightbringer promotion points are often farmed early on in The Mirror of Lyss, and later in the Realm of Torment with Lightbringer's Gaze. Click here for Lightbringer Point Farming strategies. Reputation Farming In the GW:EN expansion, farming for reputation points of the Asura, Norn, Deldrimor and Ebon Vangaurd is popular. Typically, this involves attaining a blessing (such as Norn Hunting Party or Asuran Bodyguard) and eliminating all creatures in a select area. Since blessing increase in rank (and give more reputation points per kill) as you kill more foes, large areas are preferred, as it allows reputation to be gathered more efficiently, and re-zoning will remove all blessings. A typical farming mission will also include frequent stops to the guards of resurrection shrines, as they will often grant bonus reputation according to how much you have killed. Notes * Remember that the loot found in an area is proportional to the expected level of the character's development in the PvE game. That is, farming in Old Ascalon will yield items suitable for characters of level 3 to 6 (even if the party farming is all level 20), while farming in the Ring of Fire Islands will yield level 20 loot. *Loot now scales according to party size. Items of greater value (gold items, greens, etc) are exempt from scaling. * A-Net occasionally nerfs farming. Sometimes it is a wide reaching nerf such as: ** 10th November 2005 and 25th October 2006:. AI was updated, decreased the efficiency of a number of established solo / dual farming builds. * The Sorrow's Furnace update introduced the key system for chests. This may have been a response to chest-farmers, who would use runner builds to farm easily reached chests, in areas such as Witman's Folly. * A nerfed farming scenario occurred in the Underworld. Players discovered a specific build of monks (preferably aided by a necromancer or an elementalist to expedite things) can singlehandedly kill off most of the monsters in this high-level area. The underworld was commonly farmed by groups of two: an invincimonk and a Spiteful Spirit necromancer. Arenanet has introduced Dying Nightmares to make farming the underworld more difficult. ArenaNet continues trying to foil such strategies; in response, farming groups search for new ones. *Other times only a specific area or skill of the game is nerfed. ** March 2nd 2006: Scarabs added to the Crystal desert to nerf farming of Griffins and Minotaurs. ** August 25 2005: Protective Bond was nerfed to prevent its use by Invincimonks. Category:Glossary